Life In Ireland Research Articles

Underrepresenting Reality? Media Coverage of Women in Politics and Sport

ObjectivesHow do surges in female representation in public life affect media coverage? Can the media underrepresent the reality of women's progress? If so, is the source of underrepresentation the media itself or social elites that interact with the media?MethodsUsing automatic content analysis, we study two remarkable step changes in women's role in public life in Ireland: the 2016 elections and 2012 Olympics.ResultsThe increase in female participation was associated with a new and substantial gender gap in coverage, which we attribute to the media, not other elites.ConclusionsWe cannot assume that media coverage will increase proportionally as women advance in public life. The reemergence of bias when female representation jumps may also exist outside the media in any context where there are large numbers of decisions about whether to favor males or females.

Age period cohort analysis in cancers associated with overweight and obesity in Ireland

AbstractThe Central Statistics Office (CSO) in Ireland report that 62% of adults were overweight or obese in 2017(1). In 2019, the latest data from the national longitudinal study “Growing Up in Ireland” showed that 15% of five-year olds were overweight and 5% were obese(2). According to WHO projections, Ireland may have the highest prevalence of overweight and obesity in Europe by 2030(3). The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) state there is sufficient evidence for a cancer preventative effect of the absence of excess body fatness for 13 different cancer sites(4). Recent USA based research showed that the risk of developing an obesity-related cancer seems to be increasing in a stepwise manner in successively younger birth cohorts(5), therefore we aimed to investigate trends in the age of obesity related cancer diagnosis.National Cancer Registry Ireland (NCRI) data was obtained for 25 to 84 year olds between 1997 and 2016 for several cancer types and 5-year intervals were constructed to categorise age (25–29, 30–34 etc.) and year of diagnosis (1997–2001, 2002–2006 etc.). An age-period-cohort model was fitted to each cancer type, resulting in estimated temporal trends in incidence (expressed as annual percent change (APC) per year) and significance of the trend across age groups was tested using a Wald test(5).Analysis of NCRI data reflect significantly increasing incidence of colorectal cancer with decreasing age in Ireland (n = 40703, p = 0.00). Despite the limitation of low numbers for several cancer sites in younger age groups, similar trends were observed for a number of cancer types including thyroid and cervical cancer (p < 0.05). Although other factors (such as early detection) may contribute to these observations, addressing the large increase in incidence of obesity and colorectal cancer among young adults is essential. Research to identify exposure to modifiable risk factors, including nutrition and physical activity, throughout life in Ireland is necessary to examine potential determinants of such trends.

The Maamtrasna murders: language, life and death in nineteenth-century Ireland. By Margaret Kelleher. Pp 328. Dublin: University College Dublin Press. 2018. €20.

The Maamtrasna murders: language, life and death in nineteenth-century Ireland. By Margaret Kelleher. Pp 328. Dublin: University College Dublin Press. 2018. €20.

The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland.

Kelleher, Margaret. The Maamtrasna Murders: Language, Life and Death in Nineteenth-Century Ireland . Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2018.

The systems approach to Irish society: 136 years of unintended consequences

PurposeThis paper aims to examine a range of unintended consequences in Irish society both historical and present-day, with a view of presenting the structure of society as a dynamic system with both homeostatic or autopoietic aspects.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken in this work is in the examination of the concept of institutionalisation and whether the public perception of life in Ireland can be compared between two widely separated periods, in this case, 1800s and 2000s, and then taking one example from this model and determining the validity of single case isolation: autism units in mainstream primary schools.FindingsEven initiatives in society for the “common good” appear to have unforeseen consequences which are negative. Irish society has the appearance of a homeostatic system but on closer examination is autopoietic. The term “better” is misplaced when comparing two time frames, and argument can be made to agree or disagree.Research limitations/implicationsThere are serious limitations in using historical data in the first place, but secondarily problematic when correlating with the equivalent modern data, for example, how questions are termed and answers given, how data are collected and validated are different across different time frames. Even when one finds comparable data, it is difficult to validate and selection does itself create a bias.Originality/valueThe value of this work is to evaluate the commonplace distinction policymakers make when comparing two periods in time; for the lay person, this is a means to say whether modern Irish society could be said to be “better” than that in the nineteenth century.

Folk belief and landscape in Connacht: accounts from the Ordnance Survey letters

ABSTRACTThe Ordnance Survey of Ireland, carried out in the early-nineteenth century, was not just the process of mapping and collecting place names for translation as it is frequently depicted. The director of the Ordnance Survey, Sir Thomas Colby, decided to also use the Survey to carry out statistical, antiquarian, and geological surveys. The results of this trigonometrical survey include the so-called Ordnance Survey Memoirs and the Ordnance Survey Letters. Both sources provide valuable information about life in Ireland in the 1830s and early 1840s. Focusing in particular on the province of Connacht, this article argues that the Ordnance Survey Letters should be considered an important source of information about folklore and folk beliefs which were still extant or had been until shortly before the Survey visited the locality. This essay examines how, in a period of change and decline, the Ordnance Survey wrote local cultural heritage and identity onto the landscape.

Immaterial matters in Solar Bones by Mike McCormack

Often compared to Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman, Mike McCormack’s novel Solar Bones published in 2016 is built on tensions and paradoxes. The narrator of Solar Bones is a dead man coming back to his home and his village on All Souls Day 2008 to reflect on his life on earth. The one-sentence narrative sounds like a gasp between life and death, the past and the present, real facts and virtual facts. Just as this in-between status of the narrator is a key-feature of the novel, the narrative questions the meaning of place, embodiment, and life in Ireland at the end of the 20th century and the turn of the twenty-first century. The narrator’s death and his return coincide with the formidable end of the Celtic Tiger, so that the novel can be read as a dirge for Ireland, while the voice of the narrator, an ex-building engineer on a tightrope between the world of the dead and that of the living, implicitly questions what kind of future Ireland wants to construct. In Solar Bones reading becomes an exercise in balance between past and the future, materiality and abstraction, nature and constructs, life and death. And yet, for all its dramatic and morbid tone, this novel opens out moral, social, political and environmental perspectives and points at the need to draw lessons from the past in order to build a sounder future for the generations to come in Ireland.

Gentry Life in Georgian Ireland: The Letters of Edmund Spencer (1711-1790) ed. by Duncan Fraser, Andrew Hadfield

 Reviews develops insights gained in the first part to focus upon the English book trade, speci fically reprints of older texts, texts translated into English from other vernacular languages, and fiction that was published for a purpose or for entertainment. ese terms, as Orr acknowledges, pose their own conceptual difficulties, and I would have liked to see a more theorized approach to both questions of genre and the differences between ‘fiction for purpose’ and ‘fiction for entertainment’. Nevertheless, this is an ambitious book that adds to the expanding wealth of scholarship on the book trade that systematically dismantles ‘the rise of the novel’ narratives of fiction production. L J M U R W Gentry Life in Georgian Ireland: e Letters of Edmund Spencer (–). Ed. by D F and A H. Cambridge: Legenda. . xiv+  pp. £. ISBN ––––. Property, or the lack thereof, seems to have defined those who aspired to be considered ‘gentry’ in Georgian Ireland, where Catholics made up % of the population but owned only % of the land. Suggestively, it is not entirely clear from these letters if Edmund Spencer belongs to the Protestant ascendancy or is in fact a Catholic, or whether he diplomatically equivocates. Most of Spencer’s letters were written to Francis Price, a gentleman of considerable property and business interests, who was born in Ireland but was living in Overton, near Wrexham, Wales. At some point, Spencer seems to have become Price’s agent, overseeing his property in Ireland. Aer Price’s death, the correspondence continues with his widow Alice and their son, Richard, for whom Spencer continued to act as an agent. is edition of Spencer’s letters is illustrated with historical maps, an index which identifies the people mentioned in the correspondence, the places mentioned, and the places given as addresses of origin. Careful and illuminating attention is paid to how these letters were transmitted, including the franking system and the cost of posting letters. We learn, for example, that postage was paid by the recipient. An extremely useful introduction comments on the family relationships of the correspondents and gentry life in Ireland. It is noteworthy that Spencer, though living for the most part in rural areas of Georgian Ireland, is aware of events going on in the British Empire. For example, he writes his observations about the War of Jenkins’ Ear (–), a conflict between Britain and Spain over trading rights in the Caribbean, as well as giving details of marriages, illnesses, and other events of local interest. As an edition of correspondence, this work by Duncan Fraser and Andrew Had- field is a model of how an edition should be put together. In addition to discussing the use of Old and New Style calendars and describing the archive, they supply a chronological chart of the archive listing dates, folio numbers, addressees, and places of origin. e commentary on transcription skilfully analyses the trade-off between reading the original manuscript and a transcription which ‘pares away MLR, .,   the obfuscating aspects of unfamiliar handwriting, outdated orthographical conventions , and the deleterious effects of time on paper’ (p. ). e discussion of the idiosyncrasies of Spencer’s punctuation is instructive about eighteenth-century attitudes generally and especially noteworthy in its suggestion that dashes may be used as paragraph markers to save the cost of paper. Meanwhile, in their new printed form the letters are presented in a handsomely produced volume by Legenda , an imprint of the Modern Humanities Research Association. In terms of copy-editing, it is rare to see such an excellently prepared academic book. In a letter written on  August , Spencer tells Price that his friends have suggested that if he could be made known to the Duke of Marlborough, ‘his Grace would certainly procure some Employment for me either civil or military, on Account of my Family, and in consideration of my being descended from the famous Poet of his Name’ (p. ). e reference is to Charles Spencer, rd Duke of Marlborough, and the comment is interesting because of its self-effacement. Spencer avoids presuming to claim kinship on the grounds of a common surname and counters any suggestion of presumption by alluding to his great-great-grandfather, ‘the...

Hopkins's Kestrel: "The Windhover," 1877–1884

Hopkins's KestrelDrafting "The Windhover," 1877–1884 Thomas Owens (bio) This article offers the first full account of the textual genesis of "The Windhover," situating the revisions made to the poem between 1877 and 1884 in their specific social and theological contexts to clarify the spiritual axis along which it was written. Tracing the poem's compositional history also has significant implications for understanding Hopkins's verse craft and the development of sprung rhythm. The seminal changes of 1884 can be dated very specifically to a fortnight between late February and early March, coinciding with the start of Lent. This time frame is consolidated by juxtaposing these changes alongside several entries particularizing Hopkins's daily meditative practices in the Dublin Notebook that are extremely pertinent to the poem and that have not hitherto been assessed in conjunction with it. Whereas the 1877 emendations to "The Windhover" record a poet's instinctive joy in the natural world, those of 1884 are predominantly determined by a priest's wish to adhere to the will of God. I Situating the revisions made to "The Windhover" between 1877 and 1884 in their specific social and theological contexts clarifies the spiritual axis along which it was written, in turn complicating William Empson's famous interpretation of the poem. Tracing in detail this compositional history also has significant implications for understanding Hopkins's verse craft and the development of sprung rhythm. There are three extant manuscripts of "The Windhover,," two in the poet's hand dating from the early and late summer of 1877 and one made by Robert Bridges, Hopkins's friend and literary executor, in the autumn of 1883.1 Both autograph manuscripts were forwarded to Bridges and mounted by him into an album, MS A, for safekeeping. The earliest autograph, MS A1, intended as a fair copy of the first version written on May 30, 1877, instead bears evidence of the energies of fresh composition (fig. 1).2 Bridges received it "before 16 July 1878" and possibly eleven months earlier.3 The second autograph, MS A2, is a bona fide fair copy with further substantive revisions to lines 2–5 thought to date from the late summer of 1877 (fig. 2). It was most [End Page 43] likely sent to Bridges "after 14 May 1880" (PW, p. 377). In 1883, Bridges transcribed many of Hopkins's autographs, including "The Windhover," into a second album, MS B, to lend to friends (fig. 2). Before loaning it out, Bridges dispatched this album to Hopkins for editing, and it arrived at Stonyhurst in mid-December 1883 for the purpose. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig. 1. Facing page of the Reading Text (verso) and MS A1 (recto) of "The Windhover." From Gerard Manley Hopkins, The Poetical Works of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. Norman H. MacKenzie (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1990), pp. 144–145. Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Province of The Society of Jesus. Norman MacKenzie has stipulated that Hopkins "had little leisure" for revision that Christmas and, in any case, was hampered "by having few fair copies of his own creations against which to check the Bridges transcripts" (PW, p. xxxvii). Moreover, he was anxious about his prospective life in Ireland. MacKenzie does not mention "The Windhover" as among the poems Hopkins did manage to revise before moving to Dublin on February 18, 1884, to take up his dual appointment as Professor of Classics at University College and Fellow of the Royal University of Ireland. Coventry Patmore asked to see Hopkins's poems in a letter of January 21, 1884—a solicitation that may have encouraged revision—and was in possession of MS B on March 6.4 Taking Mac-Kenzie's provision alongside Patmore's receipt of the second album, Hopkins's last amendments to "The Windhover" in MS B can be dated very specifically [End Page 44] to a fortnight between late February and early March 1884, nearly seven years after the poem was begun. Patmore returned MS B to Bridges, not Hopkins, in July 1884, and in red ink Bridges adjusted the latest autograph of the poem he had...

Jane Gray, Ruth Geraghty, and David Ralph, Family rhythms: The changing textures of family life in Ireland.

Jane Gray, Ruth Geraghty, and David Ralph, <i>Family rhythms: The changing textures of family life in Ireland.</i>

Jane Gray , Ruth Geraghty and David Ralph , Family rhythms: the changing textures of family life in Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Pages xii + 260. £16.99 paperback.

Jane Gray , Ruth Geraghty and David Ralph , Family rhythms: the changing textures of family life in Ireland (Manchester: Manchester University Press). Pages xii + 260. £16.99 paperback.

Caitriona Clear. Women’s Voices in Ireland: Women’s Magazines in the 1950s and 60s.

Caitriona Clear contributes another book to the historiography on the life of women in twentieth-century Ireland. Having already covered women as nuns, farmers, and housekeepers, she now examines women who were troubled enough about certain aspects of their private lives to bring their worries to the pages of Irish magazines. Set in a later period than her insightful Social Change and Everyday Life in Ireland, 1850–1922 (2007), Women’s Voices in Ireland: Women’s Magazines in the 1950s and 60s analyzes the letter pages, problem columns, advertisements, and other contents of two Irish women’s magazines in the 1950s and 1960s. Without Clear or, perhaps, another curious researcher, the voices in question would otherwise be hidden in the pages of these magazines from half a century ago, their particular problems forgotten. However, with this volume, these voices become part of the larger published narrative on twentieth-century Irish women, joining the nationalists, the suffragists, the trades-unionists, the religious, and others more visible in public life. Clear already used some of these magazines in her Women of the House: Women’s Household Work in Ireland, 1922–1961; Discourses, Experiences, and Memories (2000), and in her 2001 article in Women’s Studies on the writer Maura Laverty, who sometimes wrote for these magazines and also answered readers’ problems.

Autism and technology: A father’s journey

In the past decade the technology market has been flooded with a plethora of applications or apps aimed at the Educational and SEN markets. These can be categorised into two main groups; augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) technologies, and teaching tools and support strategy applications. Although there are hundreds of apps which purport usefulness in aiding learning, communication, social skills, etc., as an EP I feel ill-equipped in making use of this vast arena of potential tools. There is currently a limited evidence base due to the relative infancy of this area and the speed at which it is developing. I met Rob Laffan, a parent and app developer, at a conference in September 2016 and was struck by his journey into using technology as an AAC to support his daughter, who has a diagnosis of autism and is non-verbal. The interview below gives a brief summary of his experiences, and following this I reflect on the use of technology in education. Rob lives in Ireland with his wife and daughter, Sadie, who is six years old.

Passing through - reasons why migrant doctors in Ireland plan to stay, return home or migrate onwards to new destination countries.

BackgroundInternational recruitment is a common strategy used by high-income countries to meet their medical workforce needs. Ireland, despite training sufficient doctors to meet its internal demand, continues to be heavily dependent on foreign-trained doctors, many of whom may migrate onwards to new destination countries. A cross-sectional study was conducted to measure and analyse the factors associated with the migratory intentions of foreign doctors in Ireland.MethodsA total of 366 non-European nationals registered as medical doctors in Ireland completed an online survey assessing their reasons for migrating to Ireland, their experiences whilst working and living in Ireland, and their future plans. Factors associated with future plans – whether to remain in Ireland, return home or migrate to a new destination country – were tested by bivariate and multivariate analyses, including discriminant analysis.ResultsOf the 345 foreign doctors who responded to the question regarding their future plans, 16 % of whom were Irish-trained, 30 % planned to remain in Ireland, 23 % planned to return home and 47 % to migrate onwards. Country of origin, personal and professional reasons for migrating, experiences of training and supervision, opportunities for career progression, type of employment contract, citizenship status, and satisfaction with life in Ireland were all factors statistically significantly associated with the three migratory outcomes.ConclusionReported plans may not result in enacted emigration. However, the findings support a growing body of evidence highlighting dissatisfaction with current career opportunities, contributing to the emigration of Irish doctors and onward migration of foreign doctors. Implementation of the WHO Global Code, which requires member states to train and retain their own health workforce, could also help reduce onward migration of foreign doctors to new destination countries. Ireland has initiated the provision of tailored postgraduate training to doctors from Pakistan, enabling these doctors to return home with improved skills of benefit to the source country.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12960-016-0121-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A Portrait of the Rebel as an Artist: Deconstructing Post-coloniality in Francis Stuart’s Black List, Section H

The historically ‘interrogative’ nature of the modern Irish novel introduces post-independence Ireland as a locus that is torn between social double standards and political extremes. Rebellious and critical voices channelled through the dialectical discourse of the novel and at once critiqued a State-sponsored voice of internal othering and narratives of decolonization. To sustain its relevance as a medium of criticism the modern Irish novel replaced the classical structure of the novel with narratives that tend to deconstruct the State’s politics of formation. These narratives, this paper suggests, are inherently personal and structurally biographical, enabling the Irish to revisit the past and restructure their perception of critical concepts such as national identity, ideological intolerance, and individual formation. By examining Francis Stuart’s Black List, Section H (1971), and John McGahern’s The Dark (1965), firstly I will identify these resistant voices, which challenged and subverted the socio-political, and educational boundaries. Secondly, I will explore a dividing line that appeared between such critical voices, splitting them into critics who sought a liberated definition of Irishness rooted in the principles of the men of 1916, and rebels who demanded social recognition and political and commercial success. It is the latter group, I argue, that instead of enhancing the standards of life in Ireland became a threat to its very foundation.

A Map of Things Known and Lost in Anne Enright’s The Green Road

There is an ongoing debate among critics of contemporary Irish literature that divides those specialists who consider that Irish writers are too intent on revisiting the past history of the island, from the, comparatively speaking, scarce number of scholars who have been able to notice how contemporary Irish authors are minutely dissecting in their fictions the present socio-cultural circumstances of Ireland. Therefore, Fintan O'Toole (2001, 2010), Declan Kiberd (2005), Julian Gough (2010), and Eamon Maher and Eugene O'Brien (2014) represent those critical voices that maintain that the Irish writers are too intent on, almost obsessed with, looking to the past, and that they seem unable to dissect in their fictions the changing atmosphere of the island. Thus, Julian Gough stated in 2010 that "If there is a movement in Ireland, it is backwards. Novel after novel set in the nineteen seventies, sixties, fifties. Reading award winning Irish literary fiction, you wouldn't know television had been invented" (1). More recently, Eamon Maher and Eugene O'Brien exemplified this alleged disregard for the present focusing on the years of prosperity in Ireland, and wondered why "it was that our writers and artists, along with politicians, economists, academics and the media in general, failed to alert the public in an adequate manner to the dangers associated with the Celtic Tiger. Why was there no major novel, for example, that exposed what was really happening in Ireland at that time?" (2014: 6). Nevertheless, Anne Fogarty (2003), Eilis Ni Dhuibhne (2010), and Susan Cahill (2012) have been able to identify authors and works concerned with bearing witness to contemporary life in Ireland. In this sense, Ni Dhuibhne proves her point by offering some examples of novels all dealing in whole or in part with modern Ireland in its various manifestations pre-Celtic Tiger, Celtic Tiger, post-Celtic Tiger: Nuala O'Faolain, Almost There; Mary Rose Callaghan, Billy Come Home; Lia Mills, Nothing Simple; Catherine Dunne, Set In Stone; Jennifer Johnston, Truth or Fiction; Claire Kilroy, Only the Names Have Been Changed [sic]. Several of my books, which modesty prevents me from naming, could be added to the list (1). It cannot be denied that outstanding contemporary Irish authors continue to successfully delve into the past, as in the case of Joseph O'Connor (Star of the Sea, 2002; Redemption Falls, 2007), Sebastian Barry (Annie Dunne, 2002; A Long Long Way, 2005; The Secret Scripture, 2008; On Canaan's Side, 2011), Colm Toibin (Brooklyn, 2009; Nora Webster, 2014), Mary Costello (Academy Street, 2014), Lia Mills (Fallen, 2014), Evelyn Conlon (Not the Same Sky, 2015), and Nuala O'Connor (Miss Emily, 2015), to name but some examples of highly acclaimed Irish authors and novels. These works have shared the publishing marketplace with other fictions that deploy the changing socio-cultural circumstances of contemporary Ireland, such as Mary Rose Callaghan's The Visitors' Book (2001), Elizabeth Wassell's The Things He Loves (2001) and Sustenance (2011), Anne Haverty's The Free and Easy (2006), Eillis Ni Dhuibhne's Fox, Swallow, Scarecrow (2007), Chris Binchy's Open-Handed (2008), Peter Cunningham's Capital Sins (2010), Hugo Hamilton's Hand in the Fire (2010), Claire Kilroy's The Devil I Know (2012) Colm Keena's Bishop's Move (2013), Donal Ryan's The Spinning Heart (2012) and The Thing about December (2013), or Paul Murray's The Mark and the Void (2015). Therefore, we cannot agree with Maher and O'Brien when they maintain that there is no serious "fictional representation of the 1990s and beyond, apart from some references in the genres of crime fiction and chick lit" (2014: 6). Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that Irish women writers such as Mary Rose Callaghan, Elizabeth Wassell, Anne Haverty and Eillis Ni Dhuibhne wrote fictions in which they denounced the follies of Celtic Tiger Ireland and even anticipated the social, cultural and economic dangers of a rapidly changing society before the official financial collapse of the island in 2008 (Estevez-Saa 2010; 2013). …

OA34 Forum on end of life: working to influence policy.

The Forum on End of Life in Ireland was launched in 2009 and has conducted a year-long public consultation about end of life issues. A National Council was set up to carry out the work of the Forum. Think Ahead is a public awareness initiative of the Forum on End of Life in Ireland which guides people in recording important information in the event that they are unable to speak for themselves, due to serious illness, emergency or death. The Forum has advocated for legislation of advance health care directives and has worked to raise awareness among members of the public in relation to their rights. Currently in Ireland while common law recognises people's right to express preferences and make directives, there has been no legislative framework for this, despite European and international law regarding personal autonomy and the right to self-determination. Organised briefings and information seminars for public representatives Organised public meetings and national conferences which deal with the importance of advance healthcare directives Spoke of the importance of advance healthcare directives and advance care planning as part of the Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) Health Committee hearings on end of life Called for wider national end of life strategy to take a comprehensive approach to end of life issues, including health, legal, administrative, financial and social. Advance healthcare directives are provided for in the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Bill 2013. The aforementioned Bill has yet to be enacted and there remains work to be done in developing policy in this area.

OA33 Think ahead.

Think Ahead is a public awareness initiative of the Forum on End of Life in Ireland. The Think Ahead Form (www.thinkahead.ie) guides people in recording important information in the event that they are unable to speak for themselves, due to serious illness, emergency or death. To engage the public to use Think Ahead and to build capacity of community organisations and health care professionals to empower people to use the tool if they wish. A 'Think Ahead' form and website were designed and launched as guidance tools for the public. A range of processes were also engaged in, including: Public consultation Consultation with key stakeholders GP research: involving 120 people up to 70 years of age, examined people's experiences of filling in the Think Ahead form Nursing home research: involving staff and residents in nursing homes in Kildare in 2014 Regional community- based pilots: Regional pilots took place in Limerick and Louth, late 2012 Train the trainer programmes with community organisations Very positive outcomes for patients and GPs Nursing home staff empowered to enable residents to express their preferences 80% of public believed that Think Ahead would be of interest to the general public 30,000 forms distributed since 2011 Active Retirement Ireland rolling out Think Ahead The research and public engagement activities have shown that Think Ahead is a citizen-led practical tool which people can use as part of their planning for end of life.

Allison, J. Motherhood and Infertility in Ireland: Understanding the Presence of Absence. Cork: Cork University Press. 2013. €39.00 256pp. ISBN 978–1782–05003–2 (hbk)

Interestingly, the primary research underpinning this book was carried out in Ireland. Particularly in recent years, Ireland has had extensive media coverage, of which historical revelations on paedophilia, the abuse of women and the systematic denial of basic human rights on the part of both the church and the state provide just a few examples. From my recent small-scale research into abortion in Ireland and, as an Irish woman who grew up in the North, this book immediately drew my attention. There are numerous reproductive health issues that need to be addressed in Ireland at present and this book has a part to play in moving this debate forward. This book provides a distinguished contribution to the ever-increasing body of academic literature addressing reproductive health and inequality. As opposed to focusing on presenting empirical data in isolation Allison begins to address the moral discourses surrounding fertility, exploring the social, institutional and political challenges posed by infertility treatment in Ireland. Essentially, this publication provides a comprehensive and contextualised analysis of the lived experience of infertility in Ireland. Beginning with an overview of fertility in the Irish context, Allison goes on to create a sound historical base from which to move forward, specifically analysing the Irish Constitution (1937) and its definition of the unborn child from both scientific and theological standpoints. The concepts of fertility and infertility are placed in the socioeconomic context of Ireland and the overarching power struggles between nature, medicine, politics and religion. In exploring this further, the root causes of women's oppression in Ireland become apparent, and Allison explores feminist debates surrounding subjectivity and what she terms the collapsing subject position of ‘women’ and ‘mother’ in Irish society. Focusing on the ideal of motherhood identity in Ireland, Allison proceeds to highlight the assumptions and hetero-normative gender roles imposed on Irish women by the state, church and society as a whole. A detailed account follows of the clinical procedures, guidelines and scientific advancements in in vitro fertilisation and assisted reproductive technology treatment, illustrated with several personal narratives of infertility and its challenges. These narratives provide invaluable substance and bring the book to life. Allison explores the many contrasting lived experiences of infertility in single men and women and in heterosexual and homosexual couples. This broad range of experience is what adds great depth to this book and persuades the reader to accept this as a real and pertinent issue. In delving deeper into these experiences, class-based narratives begin to emerge and the stark contrast becomes apparent between those who can afford assisted reproductive healthcare and those who are excluded, because of their low income. Allison's book contributes significantly to the current wave of change sweeping across Ireland. It brings to the forefront experiences that, until recently, have very much existed only in underground movements and shrouded in secrecy and shame. This exploration of the public–private split brings to light the very real situation experienced by those faced with infertility and possible treatment options in the complex and shifting backdrop provided by Irish society. Those experiencing these issues at first hand are often caught between the conflicting public definition of infertility as unnatural and shameful and their own private construction of the process they need to take so as to fulfil their desires to start a family and have children of their own. In seeking to highlight the oppression faced by a range of infertile couples in Ireland, Allison raises profound debates in an engaging and thought-provoking way, allowing the reader to develop a critical understanding of these complex issues. This is invaluable reading for anyone studying this field, especially those interested in exploring the deep-rooted and intertwined influence imposed by the state and church on Irish society. The focus on the structural elements of oppression, as opposed to an individualistic analysis, allows the hetero-normative definition of family life in Ireland to be scrutinised. The struggle for equality and self-determination of reproductive rights for women has always been at the cutting edge of social change and it is a crucial component in the fight for equal rights across society as a whole. The significance of this book is that it re-asserts the need to engage more openly in public dialogue on the issue of fertility and infertility in Ireland and this analysis can, in turn, be employed to inform, influence and potentially reshape current political ambiguity. This book provides an important contribution to the field and I would thoroughly recommend it to students, practitioners and academics alike.

English as a Foreign Language: David Mitchell and the Born-Translated Novel

English as a Foreign Language:David Mitchell and the Born-Translated Novel Rebecca L. Walkowitz (bio) The truth of a myth, your Honor, is not its words but its patterns. –David Mitchell, Thousand Autumns Why would a novel want to undermine its own words? Surely, literature is made of words, and any ambitious novel would want to wear its words proudly, declaiming their truth as well as their beauty. Yet we know that novels produced in smaller languages, which possess fewer publishers and fewer readers, have needed to make their words accessible, both to distant audiences and to translators in dominant languages. And some works in dominant languages, when they are produced in spaces far from the centers of publishing, have likewise had to retract idiomatic phrases, alter references to regional languages, and provide glossaries. But why would a British novel, produced in English and first published in London, stake a claim for patterns rather than words? And why would it pretend – as David Mitchell’s does – to be taking place in one of several foreign tongues? In this essay, I address these questions by turning to Mitchell’s several novels, which solicit future translation by registering translation’s past. Mitchell’s novels incorporate the history of translation in an unusual way: they narrate languages rather than describe them. His works rarely display multilingualism. Instead, they make English into a foreign language by emphasizing target rather than source, audiences rather than authors, and by attributing their own beginnings to prior editions and literary works in other languages. Mitchell’s novels are therefore born translated: not merely appearing in translation, in one of many language editions produced throughout the world, they have been written for translation from the start.1 Mitchell’s works seek to keep being translated. They register their debts to translated works, and they also invite future translations into new languages and literary histories. To keep being translated, as Barbara Cassin has argued, means that translation is already taking place and will continue to take place.2 Writing from a dominant language, novelists such as Mitchell know that many readers will encounter their works, as we say, in the original. Addressing themselves to multiple audiences, their task is not to defend their language against incursion or absorption by some another language. Rather, it is to provincialize English as a medium of globalization. For starters, this means reminding readers that English is [End Page 30] one language among many. But it also means acknowledging that English has a distinctive geopolitical history: today, it is often invisible, at least to monolingual users; in the past, it has been less powerful and less central, and it may be so again. Mitchell presents English as a foreign language in order to demote English as a language of composition and reception, to welcome translation into new languages, and to affirm the centrality of other language traditions in the history of the British novel. In Mitchell’s novels, circulation is a source of literary production. A resident of Japan for many years, Mitchell was born in England and now lives in Ireland. Most of his novels – there are six to date – feature the movement of people and books among Asia, Europe, and the U.S. To be sure, Mitchell is not the only British novelist who writes about East Asia. Kazuo Ishiguro’s first two novels focused on U.S.-occupied Japan, and his fifth on the international settlement in Shanghai; the Japan-based British novelist David Peace is writing a trilogy of novels about Tokyo in the years immediately following the Second World War. There are also many U.S.-based novelists, including Maxine Hong Kingston, Amy Tan, Chang-rae Lee and Monique Truong, who write about twentieth-century emigrations from the Pacific to the U.S, and occasionally, in Truong’s case, from the Pacific to Europe. However, Mitchell’s novels are unusual in their attention to longer histories of European-Asian contact, to transactions both within and across those regions, and to the multilingual and multigeneric sources of the British novel. Creating books whose editions are multiple and ongoing, Mitchell invites his readers and translators to see themselves as makers. In...